


The Wisdom to Know the Difference

by zade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Broken Bones, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Relapsing, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Sobriety, Therapy, but it's short so not that slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 02:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16883589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zade/pseuds/zade
Summary: “I’m not sure what happened,” Grantaire admits to Combeferre.  His arm is in a cast, and he can feel the tight stretch on stitches on his forehead, but the most pertinent problem really is the panic growing in his belly.  His drawing arm is in a cast.  The arm he uses to make art, the only part of him that really truly needs to be functional for him to have the future he wants, and it’s in a cast, and he has no idea what he did.Combeferre’s face turns concerned.  “Your head wound didn’t look bad enough for a concussion…”  He pauses, eyebrows near touching in thought.  He grabs Grantaire’s chart off the bed and flips through it.  The tension leaves his eyebrows and they instead skyrocket towards his hairline.  “Your blood alcohol level was extremely high, Grantaire.  Do you remember drinking?”--For The March Hair, based on aheart wrenching picture





	The Wisdom to Know the Difference

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been a long time coming! for the amazing [The March Hair](https://the-march-hair.tumblr.com) based on [this image](https://the-march-hair.tumblr.com/post/169447819642/jehan-honey-were-worried-about-you-grantaire) and a bunch of headcanons she gave me/I slowly leeched out of her over the course of our friendship
> 
> have fun suffering back!
> 
> this fic contains: alcoholism! a character being treated for such and relapsing, depression, broken appendages/limbs, self-image/self-worth issues BUT WITH A HAPPY ENDING
> 
> beta'd by [sunflashes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflashes/pseuds/sunflashes) who is great and is writing a great prequel fic if ur into star wars
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy!

He wakes up the hospital, shivering and achy, and it’s the most afraid he’s ever been. His head is full of cotton and his arms are made of lead. He takes a deep breath and tries to steady his himself, but there’s a beating in his head like a kickdrum and his eyes are welded shut, and his stomach is sour like bad milk and he doesn’t know where he is.

The next time he wakes up he’s Grantaire again, and he’s cognizant enough to realize he’s in a hospital. Breaking the seal of his eyes, he realizes he’s not alone. Combeferre is there, asking him questions, which means he’s in the hospital. Why is he in the hospital?

“I’m not sure what happened,” Grantaire admits to Combeferre. His arm is in a cast, and he can feel the tight stretch on stitches on his forehead, but the most pertinent problem really is the panic growing in his belly. His drawing arm is in a cast. The arm he uses to make art, the only part of him that really truly needs to be functional for him to have the future he wants, and it’s in a cast, and he has no idea what he did.

Combeferre’s face turns concerned. “Your head wound didn’t look bad enough for a concussion…” He pauses, eyebrows near touching in thought. He grabs Grantaire’s chart off the bed and flips through it. The tension leaves his eyebrows and they instead skyrocket towards his hairline. “Your blood alcohol level was extremely high, Grantaire. Do you remember drinking?”

Grantaire never realized before how expressive Combeferre’s face is. “I…I don’t know.” He swallows. Honesty, he thinks, is disproportionately hard. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it was pretty likely I was. Getting my wine-mom training in early.”

Combeferre frowns, which is an expression that Grantaire isn’t all that familiar with on Combeferre’s face. He only knows Les Amis because the university he and Jehan go to doesn’t have a social justice presence to speak of, but their other roommate, Bahorel, had introduced him to the one operated by students at his school, but open to students city-wide. Grantaire knows Combeferre, knows him well enough to trust he’s in good hands, but they aren’t friends. “Do you black out drinking a lot?”

They keep him in the hospital for the detox. Grantaire shakes and sweats and vomits and cries, and it’s almost enough to make him regret the decision after all. Combeferre stays with him those first few days which is a relief. He claims that he’s working the whole time, but even with as crazy as hospital schedules are, no one works that many days in a row. Grantaire appreciates the excuse though, because Combeferre is steady and calm, and talks with Grantaire about science fiction and plays, and makes sure he takes as much acetaminophen as he’s allowed. 

Once he’s released, Grantaire joins AA, gets a sponsor, and feels genuinely really good about the whole venture. He hasn’t told Jehan or Bahorel, but he tells himself it’s more because he doesn’t want to worry them, rather than not wanting to admit anything to them (although to be honest, it’s probably a mixture of the two). He’s sick in those first few days and he drinks too much coffee to compensate, but it’s going better than he could have hoped for, because he somehow hasn’t had a drink.

Mostly, he sits in his room and stares an empty canvas, which he’s pretty sure is mocking him. His broken arm hurts like a bitch, too, with nothing to take but aspirin “so he doesn’t develop another dependency,” which feels fake, but maybe also kind of smart.

Jehan had sucked his teeth at the notion and gone spelunking in his massive backpack, surfacing with a bottle of hydrocodone which he had offered to Grantaire with a grin. Grantaire had never particularly liked narcotics, but the fact that he felt temptation in the gaping maw at his core that was yelling for a drink lent credence to the doctor’s theory, and he had somehow found the moral fortitude to say no.

Grantaire lets himself be cajoled into going to the next Les Amis meeting, mostly because after almost half a week of sitting alone in his room trying to remember what art is like without alcohol, he could use a break, use some friends. Jehan and Bahorel have been an almost constant in his life, helping him with everything from groceries to dishes due to his arm, but he knows he’s been distant and moody; in pain, and unwilling to admit to his best friends that he maybe sort of definitely has a problem.

The meetings have always been at bars, and Grantaire’s not sure why he didn’t think of that until he’s sitting at a table with Bahorel and Jehan, and across the room, Combeferre is darting him nervous looks.

Bahorel runs to the bar and comes back with a beer for Grantaire. It’s just a beer. He should say no. Grantaire studiously ignores Combeferre. It’s just a beer, though. Maybe a sip. Maybe two sips. He’s handled himself for almost half a week. Maybe he doesn’t have to give up alcohol completely—maybe he doesn’t have a problem, and has just been over-doing it. Maybe if he cuts back...

Five beers later finds him puking in the alley while his sponsor says things like, “get back on the horse,” and, “this happens to the best of us,” and, “learn from your mistakes” on speakerphone.

Combeferre comes out of the bar halfway through the conversation, and Grantaire makes his excuses and hangs up. He didn’t want to talk to his sponsor anyway. “I fucked up,” he tells Combeferre.

“You maybe didn’t think the meeting through,” Combeferre corrects, lightly. “I take it you didn’t tell Jehan or Bahorel.”

“It’s hard,” Grantaire says, and it is hard. And he thinks, even with the broken arm and the black spaces dotting his memory, he had sort of thought that maybe he didn’t have a problem, after all, which maybe makes him an idiot.

“I can respect that,” Combeferre says, then gestures to Grantaire’s phone with his head. “Is that helping you?”

Grantaire hesitates. Combeferre has been more helpful that he is obligated to be, including sitting in this disgusting alley while inside someone else is showing off the slideshow that he knows Combeferre spent all week working on, because he caught him editing it in the library twice. The kind thing to do would be to say “yes,” and end it there.

But Grantaire’s trying out this whole honesty thing in theory, and he supposes he should try and practice it, too. He shakes his head. “No. I mean, I get the shared experiences blah blah blah part,” he pauses to gather his thoughts. He doesn’t remember it being this hard to align his words when drunk, so maybe it’s the week off (or the clarity from his week off, leaking in, and he’s always been sort of fuzzy when buzzed). “But I hate the steps? So far they just make me feel like I’m awful person, and looking ahead there are more things that also make me feel terrible, which is sort of bad motivation. If you keep doing these steps, you too can feel like a bad person for years to come!

“And nothing feels concrete. Like people give me advice, and I guess I’m supposed to learn from their pitfalls? But no one can tell me what I’m supposed to tell my brain when it remembers we can walk down the street to the liquor store and buy alcohol, and the only thing in my way is me telling myself ‘no,’ and I’m fucking awful at telling myself no. I want someone to tell me what I should be doing and what I should be avoiding, and how to fix the broken parts of my brain that are still yelling that the best part of my week so far was the beers I just threw up.”

Combeferre nods, slowly, non-judgmentally. This is maybe the most he and Grantaire have ever spoken outside of the hospital, and Grantaire maybe word-vomited a little more than he had planned to. “You know, Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t work for everyone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s considered the tried and true method for a reason, but there are other options. Medications, therapeutic options, in-patient programs…”

“What would you do?” Grantaire asks him, desperate for someone, anyone, to take the option away from him. Clearly, he doesn’t make good decisions when left to his own devices, and he can’t handle the weight of possibly fucking up so soon.

“I know someone. A therapist. You’ll like him, I think.”

Grantaire gets a therapist.

He sort of hates his therapist, because his therapist is handsome and put together can’t be more than 5 years older than Grantaire, who is ugly, (an alcoholic) and also a fucking mess.

The first thing Grantaire says to his therapist is, “I’m an alcoholic,” blurted with all the shakiness and verve of a man two days sober, and how sad is it that two days feels like an eternity, and an achievement.

“Okay,” his therapist says in calm, nonjudgmental tones. “What do you want to do about that?”

The tone makes Grantaire mad, and he isn’t even sure why. He doesn’t want someone to judge him, doesn’t want anything close to that, but surely he deserves more condemnation than one would use why discussing the weather. The question, also, baffles him.

“Stop?” he says after a long moment of contemplation, during which he tries to decide if he thinks this is a trap.

“Okay, that’s good. Deciding you want to stop is a great first step. Let’s talk options.”

Grantaire is sort of surprised he has options. No matter how many times Combeferre explained to him that alcoholism was a disease and not just evidence of how weak willed and easily susceptible to shit Grantaire was, he had thought that most likely course of action would just be someone else telling him to stop drinking. 

His therapist refers him to a doctor who will give him pills that will make him sick if he drinks, and hopefully stop the gnawing craving in his guts, and his therapist talks to him about cognitive behavioral therapy.

“What if I fuck up?” Grantaire asks, suddenly panicky with the knowledge he’s going to.

“Let’s try and replace the word fuck up in this instance with relapse, okay? And you might. Statistically, you probably will. But I don’t mean that to discourage you. Instead, if it does happen, know that you’re not alone, and that just because you’ve relapsed doesn’t mean you can’t fight through it.”

Combeferre is waiting for him in the waiting room, holding a milkshake and a bag of french fries.

“Are you bribing me with junk food, now?” Grantaire asks, seizing the food like a starving man, or a man who would much rather be drinking.

“On the contrary,” Combeferre says sternly, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I was trying to congratulate you. I’m impressed, R.”

Grantaire blushes, but hides it in the bag of fries. It’s not really a good substitute, but it does at least taste good.

The next day his arm aches something fierce. Bahorel and Jehan are there, babying him, and they settle in to watch a movie. It’s late afternoon and a Friday, so Bahorel is drinking whiskey from a plastic cup and Jehan is drinking some tea that smells like ass and that Grantaire is pretty sure is supposed to be hallucinogenic.

They both offer him sips and look increasing worried as his continues to say no to them—and Jesus the fact that they find it worrisome he’s _not_ drinking is like a blow to the chest. How had this become his normal?

He pauses the laptop, realizing he has no idea what they’ve been watching for the majority of an hour, trapped between fighting himself down and feeling anxiety slowly amp up as he realizes he’s going to have to tell them.

It’s not at all like it was with Combeferre. Combeferre barely knows him to be disappointed, and Combeferre has that whole medical detachment thing down pat. “I have a problem,” he says, as an opening gambit. It’s open ended enough that he doesn’t have to admit to being an alcoholic yet, but hopefully obvious enough that they will fill in the blanks themselves and he can keep from having to say the words.

“Is it a problem I can punch?” Bahorel asks, hopefully, and Jehan rolls his eyes so forcefully that his entire body sways with the motion.

“What’s going on, R? Is this about your arm? Because you know the doctors said that it was clean break, and you’ll be back to painting in no time at all!” Jehan puts what is clearly meant to be a comforting hand on Grantaire’s shoulder but that is the straw that breaks the camel back, and apparently that particular camel was in charge of a dam because Grantaire starts crying like it’s going out of style.

He explains it all to them, in short stops and starts: the blacking out, the fear he could have ruined his career and not even known how, the gaps in his memory, the full body craving for liquor. About how until he had talked it through with his therapist, he had assumed it was normal, that everyone started their day with an irish coffee and ended it with a beer (or just wine, without stop, for entire days), the way alcohol had crept into every facet of his life, and at this point was nervous he wouldn’t even be able to paint without it. “I need help,” he says, finally, staring at his hands, one broken and one terribly unskilled. “I need _your_ help. I need you in my corner or I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

“Oh, R.” Jehan wraps an arm around him, his tone so mournful that Grantaire can practically feel the guilt oozing out of Jehan’s pores.

Bahorel also leans into him, and the warmth between their bodies feels like support, like a parachute when Grantaire was sure he was about to hit rock bottom; it was still going to hurt, but maybe there’d be something there to cushion the landing.

“Alright,” Bahorel says, ever a man of action. “We should maybe get rid of the alcohol in the apartment.”

Grantaire’s heart sinks, which makes no sense to him. The whole point of this is to stop him drinking. “We paid good money for that shit, I don’t want to just throw it out—and I don’t want you not being able to drink in your own apartment.”

Jehan makes another distressed noise, but Bahorel starts talking first. “Okay, this isn’t like, a movie, though; we’re not gonna pour hundreds of dollars down the sink just for the principle of it. Unless you want to do that in which case I’m volunteering the lime-a-ritas Marius left here. But otherwise, I’ll buy out your liquor and stash it at Feuilly’s. There are plenty of places and times for me to drink, Grantaire. The ease of my drinking in no way trumps your health.”

Grantaire decides to tackle the easiest part of that, first. “I think it would be good to remove the alcohol from my room but I don’t feel like it’ll be good for me do that right now?”

Bahorel looks in his eyes for a really long time, which is definitely a Bahorel thing, but it also usually a thing that doesn’t make Grantaire feel like his skin being flayed. “Would you like me to go through your shit and remove it for you? Because if that’s a thing you would like me to do, I would be more than happy to do it for you.” he asks it quietly, like he thinks Grantaire might get mad, and honestly how could he?

His friends are coming through for him. He is most definitely in their debt. He nods his assent and Bahorel stands up, giving him a thumbs up as he rises. Jehan, shoves him over so they are both sprawled out on the couch and runs his fingers through Grantaire’s hair. For a few minutes they sit there quietly while Bahorel tears through Grantaire’s things like a tornado, singing loudly, before Jehan takes an audible inhale, disturbing the relative silence.

“Can I ask a very selfish question?” he asks, hiding his head in Grantaire’s shoulder.

“Sure?” Grantaire replies, warily. Whatever direction he thought this was going to, it was not this. 

Jehan sighs, nose digging softly into Grantaire’s back. “Is this my fault?”

“What? No! What?” Grantaire is emphatic in his reply, because of course not, what the actual fuck, except he can also sort of see why Jehan thinks that.

Freshman year of college had been a revelation for Grantaire. His parents had been overbearing and limiting, while also paying the least attention to him as possible; as a result, Grantaire got to college with very few hobbies outside of art, having never had alcohol, let alone weed, and a virgin. Suddenly without adults in his life, Grantaire was free to explore, and Jehan had been a hell of a guide.

And at first, that was all it had been; exploration, then partying. Things had first started escalating when it hit Grantaire and Jehan just how much pressure their respective programs were putting on them to innovate, to create and recreate and master and evolve. Jehan composed best when high, and began to systematically work his way through every upper he could get his hands on, but Grantaire was fine drinking.

His hands were maybe less steady, but his thoughts spiraled into designs he could put his paints to, loosed his words, made him sure and confident and good. Drinking for fun twisted into drinking for work into just drinking. Maybe if he hadn’t met Jehan things would be different, but it wasn’t exactly like alcohol was hard to get one’s hands on. Grantaire was very sure he would have ended up drinking regardless.

“I encouraged you,” Jehan says quietly. “I was thinking of your art as an extension of yourself, and therefore what was good for your art was good for you, which now occurs to me is a very bad philosophy.”

There was maybe some more of this conversation that needed to happen, but Grantaire can’t handle it right now. He and his therapist had engaged in a very fraught conversation about boundaries (and how Grantaire does not want to make them, thank you), but Grantaire tries to recall the details. “There’s maybe some truth to that? But I don’t have it in me to that conversation right now. But I’m not upset with you or anything.” His heart is beating a mile a minute, like Jehan is going to get mad at him, like the world is going to end.

Instead, he can feel Jehan nodding against his shoulder. “Of course. I love you, R. I’m going to try and be better about showing it.”

Grantaire feels a lump in his throat, so he doesn’t reply, but it is Jehan, so presumably he knows that the feeling is of course reciprocal. And if not, Grantaire would tell him at a later point when he feels less like he is choking.

Bahorel comes barreling out with three reusable grocery bags in his arms, stuffed to the brim with bottles and cans. He smiles, either not bothering to read the room and the weird emotional cloud that has submerged them, or reading it and not entirely caring. “Want to throw out Marius’s shitty alcohol as a Statement to the Universe?” he says, waggling a six-pack.

Grantaire is not sure he should be getting that close to alcohol yet, but he is nothing if not a drama queen, and the imagery appeals to him, so the three of them crowd around their tiny kitchen sink and he pours can after can of Marius’s budget bullshit down the drain, wrong-handed.

Afterwards, Jehan insists on lighting a candle to rid the apartment of the lime-a-rita smell, and they settle in again to watch the movie.

Things are looking up, Grantaire thinks.

For about a week after, everything seems like they sort of are. After she shows up uninvited three days in a row, he tells Eponine, who seems unsurprised in a way that rankles, but is nonetheless supportive of his new found sobriety. She’s around much more than he can justify, and eventually figures that Drunk Grantaire must have gotten to be better friends with her than he remembers, but it’s a nice thing so he can’t be too upset about it, although the gaps in his memory definitely stress him out. They talk philosophy and mess around with his paints in both of their non-dominant hands. He sees Combeferre once at a coffee shop, and Combeferre nods at him, but that’s it; they aren’t really closer than that.

He’s fine really, right up until the next meeting of Les Amis. Bahorel and Jehan sit next to him, and all three of them drink soda straight from the can, and it isn’t okay, but Grantaire feels like it could get there, right up until Enjolras says something stupid.

Grantaire had been only sort of paying attention, more preoccupied by repeatedly telling himself that he was okay, like that would make it true. Or maybe it isn’t exactly stupid, what Enjolras says, but it’s wrong, and Grantaire opens his mouth to say as much, but the words die on his tongue.

He knows what he wants to say, can feel the words rattling around his brain like a pocketful of loose screws, and no matter how he tries to rephrase them, they just _feel_ wrong, and he can’t make himself say anything at all.

He stands up suddenly and all but runs out of the room, which is too small and too full, and the air too thick between them all for Grantaire to breathe. Behind him he can hear Courfeyrac say, “Well, I guess R disagrees with that, then,” but his heart is pounding too loudly in his ears to hear anything that comes after.

He collapses on the stoop next to Corinth, breathing a tight staccato, and the world blurs before him and he thinks he might pass out. He can’t breathe, he can’t. He feels a hand on his shoulder and tries to flinch away, but pulling away from a person feels somehow worse, so after a moment he leans into the hand and lets himself melt into someone’s arms. It’s somewhat soothing, but his vision is still tilting wildly and it feels like he’s trying to pull breath through a sponge.

The person behind him is taking big deliberate breaths, squeezing his hand on the inhale and releasing on the exhale. He tries to match them, and slowly, slowly his head stops spinning. When Grantaire’s vision evens out enough that he can see, he glances back it’s Eponine’s strong arms around him, which sort of makes sense. He can see her lips moving, and almost panics again at the thought that his ears aren’t working, but then she squeezes his hand tight enough that he gasps, and starts breathing to her rhythm again.

Centuries later when his body is fully functioning again, and Eponine’s encouraging talk has tapered into humming, Grantaire rocks his head against her neck and murmurs, “Thank you.”

She smiles down at him. “Gavroche has panic attacks. Has since he was little. Happy to help. Want to talk about what set you off?” 

Grantaire takes a deep, steadying breath and Eponine gives his hand another squeeze. “I think I’m smarter when I’m drunk. Like, the words just come to me; I know what to say—I’m smart. I am,” he says, and thinks he might sound a little hysterical. “I know I am.”

“You are very smart, Grantaire.” Eponine says, and managed to sound both supportive and like she is rolling her eyes. “And you couldn’t find the words in there?” She squeezes his hand again, but it does nothing to quell the twisting in his guts. “And now you’re wondering what the point of trying to get sober is if you can’t speak your mind.”

He realizes he’s crying and tries to hide his tears in his hands, only to have Eponine pull his cast away from his face, tsking. “Don’t get that wet, asshole,” she says, fondly.

Jesus, maybe he isn’t smart after all. “Words are my go to defense,” he says after a long moment filled with sniffling. “Words, then fists, and I like it that way. But what if I lose my words?”

Eponine sighs. “Okay, I’m going to tell you something and you’re not going to get mad, okay?”

Grantaire nods, albeit reluctantly. Eponine can be scathing when she wants to, and it’s very hard not to react to personal attacks with anger.

“You’re more confident when you’re drunk,” she starts, and his heart sinks. “Louder, more verbose, definitely more belligerent. But,” she says, and hip checks him to the best of her ability while seated. “But you are way more coherent sober. You’re concise, you’re pointed, you’re eloquent. You’re a better speaker and debater sober, you just need to work on the confidence part. And also as much as I liked you, drunk you was enough of an asshole that I sometimes got really close to cutting ties completely. I think maybe a few others in the group felt the same.”

Grantaire mulls that over. A lot of people had seemed irritated with him on and off for the last few months or so, but Grantaire had waved it off as a Them problem. It was a bit of a head trip to discover that it might have been a Him problem the whole time. “Please don’t tell me that I’ve sounded like a fucking idiot for years and no one told me.”

Eponine blows out a breath. “Well…” she says, then laughs.

“Asshole,” Grantaire replies, flicking her knee.

“Honesty,” she says, “I hadn’t really seen you sober in so long that I kind of forgot that there was another way for you to sound? I’ve just noticed the difference between now and how you used to talk. I think it’s a change for the better, I really do, but it’s going to take time and work.”

Grantaire sighs, and Eponine pulls him back into a hug. “I’m so tired of having to work to be normal.”

“Who said shit about being normal?” Eponine ruffles his hair then pauses and takes a critical look at his locs. “Just be Grantaire, don’t worry about normal. Also we gotta do loc maintenance, my man, your roots are abysmal.”

She leads him back inside, and he pretends he isn’t watching everyone watching him.

“Everything okay?” Enjolras asks from where he and Courfeyrac and Bossuet are drawing large lettered protest signs. He’s bent over the table, body strong and stretched and stunningly beautiful. He turns to face Grantaire, and Grantaire can see something on his face that’s maybe concern.

“Peachy,” Grantaire says, and winks. Whatever the emotion he thought he saw on Enjolras’s face is replaced immediately by his resting bitch face, almost so quickly that Grantaire thinks he might have imagined the concern to begin with. Imagine Enjolras having concern for him. Laughable.

“All right,” Enjolras says tightly, turning back to his posterboard. Grantaire isn’t sure what he did that triggered that reaction, but it’s just as well.

If he’s trying to kick his addictions, maybe he should be working on his Enjolras addiction, too.

He goes back to class that week, and it’s exhausting. Without pain meds his arm is agonizing. The doctor told him that he could do art until his arm started hurting and then take that as a sign to stop, but it’s always hurting. He paints with off hand, on one memorable occasion with a brush clenched between his teeth. After an afternoon of marathoning Grace and Frankie with Joly and Musichetta, and being only a little ironically inspired by Frankie’s vagina painting, Grantaire seriously considers shoving a paintbrush up his ass, but stops himself at the last minute, which is probably for the best.

His room is small and he feels like he’s bursting at the seams. He remembers he has a emergency stash of alcohol “just in case” hidden in his art drawers. He’s almost certain Bahorel didn’t find it. He doesn’t drink. The knowledge is an albatross, and a comfort, and a curse. He doesn’t drink.

Cosette is at the next meeting, which makes Grantaire both excited and nervous. Both Marius and Eponine have sung their girlfriend’s praises, and it’s been way longer than is socially acceptable for him to have never spoken to her. She sits next to her partners for the whole meeting, which is fine, because Grantaire is sandwiched between Bossuet and Bahorel, and Gavroche is halfway on his lap, writing curse words on Grantaire’s cast.

He loses her in the crush of bodies mingling, and is about to give up on his obligatory friendship partner meeting, when Cosette appears, smoothing down the wrinkles in her sundress and plopping down in the chair Bossuet vacated.

“R!” she greets him warmly, and maybe a little too familiar for strangers, but he takes it, because she’s unreasonably charming. “I’m so sorry about your arm. How are you doing? Did you finish the book?”

He’s so taken aback he nearly does a double take. “The book?”

She’s still smiling. “Derrida? Deconstruction? Don’t tell me you haven’t started it yet, I gave it to you almost a month ago.”

He knows the book. He had discovered in his backpack three weeks ago, and assuming he had picked it up at a used book store, had promptly read, annotated, and doodled all over it. He can tell he has a pained look on his face, because Cosette stops smiling.

“Did I say the wrong thing?” she asks, which is worse.

“I am so sorry,” Grantaire says, rubbing at the coarse material of his cast and wishing he could melt into the floor. “I forgot where I got it and I read it and then drew all over it. I can pay you back?”

Her face sinks back into a smile as she sighs with relief. “Not at all, Grantaire, I finished with it, and I told you when you finished feel free to make it into a collage.” She leans in conspiratorially. “Did you _hate_ him?”

“I fucking _hated_ him,” Grantaire replies, maybe a little too emphatically. “Things mean things and they do not mean the things that they do not mean, and I need that to be true to continue living on this planet.”

“Exactly!” she exclaims, slapping her thigh with emphasis. “Exactly that. I told you we would have compatible philosophical views.” She must be able to read the utter confusion on his face because her smile turns a little sad. “You don’t remember any of this do you?”

He shakes his head and tries to ignore the yawning void inside of him. He’s embarrassed and at a loss—and Jesus how much did he miss?—and he wants to drink a bottle and then curl up inside of it. “I’m sorry.”

Cosette nods, and she reaches out to grab his free hand, and he lets her, because she seems almost too nice to be real, and he wants to bask in her compassion for as long as he can. “Eponine told me what happened—and I already had a talk with her about how that was not her info to share—but I sort of figured you were struggling. You’ve introduced yourself to me three times. He doesn’t mind me saying, so, my adoptive father has had a substance abuse problem for most of his life, so I know what it can look like. If you ever need help, or support, or a shoulder to cry on, my papa and I are available.”

Grantaire is maybe a little teary eyed, or maybe he’s suddenly developed allergies. He nods, and she squeezes his hand.

“And,” she says, grinning fully again. “No blame intended, but I am extremely pleased that from now on you’ll remember me.”

He winces, but she’s still smiling. “So any philosophers you don’t hate?” She laughs again, and he lets her laugh carry them through the conversation. The guilt is real and omnipresent, but she’s lovely to talk to, and doesn’t seem to hold the fact that he was about to introduce himself to her for a fifth time against him.

He walks home with Jehan and Bahorel, still feeling vaguely unsettled. The craving in still there, and it makes his good hand shake. He wants, he wants, he wants.

Jehan smiles at him. “Two weeks sober,” he says, bumping shoulders with Grantaire. “How’s it feel?”

Like a mistake, Grantaire thinks, but says, “Great,” and no one doubts him.

He desperately wishes someone would doubt him.

The need is there, growing, spreading through his veins, and he is almost overcome with it. His art sucks, he can’t concentrate, he can’t summon an ounce of confidence, and his arm is killing him. What is the point, he thinks, and he can’t think of a single good reason.

He calls Combeferre. “I want a drink,” Grantaire tells him when Combeferre answers, forgoing niceties. 

“That’s not surprising,” Combeferre replies after a moment, during which Grantaire thinks he hears a door close. “Most people—”

“I’m not a fucking statistic,” Grantaire snaps. 

“No, you’re not,” Combeferre says. “You’re human.”

“I need to go,” Grantaire says, and hangs up before Combeferre says anything else Grantaire doesn’t want to hear. He texts Combeferre ‘im sorry’ a minute later, feeling weighed down by guilt. 

‘Don’t worry,’ Combeferre replies, and Grantaire barely manages to resist texting back, ‘that’ll be the day.’

By the time his next therapy appointment rolls around, the need is bubbling below the surface and he can’t summon an emotion that isn’t anger. Everyone around him is fine—they’re functional and attractive and talented, and he’s a mess, and being a mess is exhausting, too.

“How are you feeling?” his therapist asks, looking handsome and put together in a way that makes Grantaire’s teeth ache.

“Like shit. I want to drink,” Grantaire says, irritably. “And don’t fucking tell me that’s normal.”

“Okay,” his therapist says. “And what would you like me to tell you?”

Anger flares in the pit inside of him, igniting his need like a molotov cocktail; the only casualty will be himself but the thing is already lit. His mom always used to say, you can’t unspill milk. “Tell me when I get to be recovered. Tell me that the cravings and the shakes will go away, and I’ll get to be a person again. Tell me I’ll be cured.”

His therapist nods silently for a moment, no doubt mentally recording something about Grantaire, and for the first time, Grantaire feels like he’s under a microscope and he wants to scream. “It’s referred to as being in recovery for a reason, Grantaire. Addiction isn’t fixable; you know that. It sucks, but there isn’t a point you go from in recovery to recovered.”

Grantaire nods. He aches with the amount he wants a drink, and aches more with guilt. “Cool, so why the fuck am I doing this again? Like, if I’m putting forth this much effort to feel terrible forever, what’s the fucking point? My reward for not doing the thing that makes my life easier, is that my life is exponentially harder, and it gets that to be that way forever? Fuck that.”

“Remind us both: why did you decide you wanted to stop drinking?”

“Because I was afraid.” And he is. He remembers the fear, the knowledge that he could have destroyed his career in art and not even remember how. The black spots, that turned out to be even more pervasive than he thought, the fear that with his habits and the lack of a structured school environment he would crumble. “But what if I hate myself without alcohol? What if I have no confidence or talent and I fail? I fail at art or at getting sober or at getting my life together. It’s like I’m constantly playing Russian Roulette with my stupid brain, and I can never tell what’s going to trigger it, and it’s so exhausting.”

“I think, in addition to working on your addiction, we should work on your sense of self.” His therapist gives him homework. “I want you to compliment yourself, everyday. Something you like about yourself physically, and something about your character. And it can be rote at first, the same thing everyday. You don’t have to write yourself love sonnets. But maybe you like your eyes, or your calves. Maybe you like how you help your friends, or how you speak your mind, or how you did all your homework. Two things. Every day.”

(Grantaire does it, so he can say he did, but he doesn’t mean a fucking thing).

“What do I do though, when I can’t stop thinking about booze?” Grantaire asks at his next session, and gets a list of things that might help: calling a friend, doing art, jogging, a plethora of things to try.

Embroidery he, finds, takes enough concentration that the nagging inside him fades to the background. He’s never touched a needle before, so he’s able to learn to do it with both hands with relative ease, and it makes Grantaire feel accomplished, like his hands are strong and skilled.

He relapses two weeks later. He had gone with most of the Amis to see Jehan’s new opera, about Walt Disney in which Mickey Mouse was a demon slowly devouring Walt’s soul. The imagery, which was violent and literally soul consuming sits poorly with Grantaire, who in his weaker moments, wonders if Walt was inspired by him and his addiction. Jehan wouldn’t do that, he knows, at least intentionally, but it seems too coincidental not to be. The Amis go to a bar together, and feeling shaky, Grantaire goes home. 

Sitting in his room with an empty bottle of wine between his legs, and another half gone in his hands, he thinks maybe he should give up. He calls Combeferre, instead.

Combeferre shows up with a milkshake and fries, confiscates the bottles, and sits opposite him on the floor.

“So, I’m a fucking failure,” Grantaire tells him, drunk, accepting the food in exchange for his bottles. He’s incredible nauseous but also not sure he’s eaten anything all day. The pills have at least worked: he feels like shit.

“I think you’re incredibly brave for even trying.” 

They sit in silence for a few long minutes, and Grantaire feels the the alcohol lift the weight off his tongue, and wonders if he sounds like an idiot again. He never used to worry how he sounded drunk, but now he wonders if he’s ever said an intelligent thing in his life. He takes a long drink of milkshake. “My therapist has me complimenting myself every day.”

“What’s your compliment for today, then?” Combeferre asks.

“I’m glad I’m the kind of person who attracts the sorts of friends that I somehow have.” Grantaire offers him an off-kilter smile.

Combeferre smiles, looks genuinely pleased by that. “May I also compliment you?” At Grantaire’s nod, he says, “I think it’s an admirable trait that you reach out when you need help.”

“I feel like a failure,” Grantaire says, acutely aware of how his words slur. Maybe he started trying too late. You can’t unspill milk.

“It’s a setback, not a roadblock. You can try again.”

Grantaire tries to find his words, and it occurs to him for the first time that maybe it actually is harder for him to speak well while drunk. “Everyone is supporting me, though, so I feel like I’m letting them down. It’s not just a me-thing suddenly; suddenly it’s a community-thing.”

“No one is looking for you to impress them, Grantaire. You have a community that wants to support you because people care about you. It’s a positive.” He steals one of Grantaire’s fries and waggles it Grantaire in a motion that might be threatening if he were doing it with anything besides a fry. “Stop thinking about us. Think about yourself. What do _you_ want? What do _you_ need?” He pops the fry into his mouth, chewing obnoxiously slowly, which Grantaire realizes is to give Grantaire a long enough pause to plan his own words.

“I want to not have to think about this shit for a while.”

Combeferre nods, and snags another fry. “And what helps with that?”

“I don’t know. Embroidery. But it’s always on my mind,” Grantaire admits. “I’m not sure what to do to change that.”

Combeferre smiles. “I don’t either. But let me know if I can help.”

Combeferre sleeps over on his floor (even though they both know there are two empty beds in the apartment: Bahorel had been making eyes at Feuilly during the show and Jehan frequently spent the entire night in bars communing with spirits after performances), and the next morning drives him to therapy.

“I relapsed,” Grantaire says, throwing himself into a chair. “My friend took me out of a depression spiral last night, but I still feel a little like a huge fucking failure with no point in continuing to try to do, you know, anything?”

His therapist frowns. “Do you want to die?”

“I want a break,” Grantaire says truthfully. “I don’t especially not want to die, but I don’t actively want it? But I want to be attractive and skilled and be able to take fucking pain meds, and to not think about alcohol constantly and,” he thinks about Enjolras, impossible, “and be desired—or at least desirable.”

His therapist nods carefully. “All right. I would suggest that we find you more things that engage you, that make you want to keep on keeping on, even if recovery can sometimes feel like a yo-yo.”

Grantaire frowns. “Is yo-yo a technical term?”

His therapist grins at him. “Consider it motivation. Go find out and tell me next week.”

So he does (and dear God it is not).

In addition to class and therapy, he starts meeting Combeferre for coffee; it’s still weird, but he’s getting to know Combeferre better. He works out with Bahorel, and hadn’t realized how unused to activity he had gotten until Bahorel was pushing him to run and to spar, and leaving him too tired to fantasize about alcohol. He dedicates an afternoon to Eponine and Cosette, talking philosophy or doing art projects with them and Gavroche, and an afternoon to Joly, Musichetta, and Bossuet, usually dedicated to watching trashy reality TV (that he knows Joly meticulously scans through to make sure no one is drinking).

He stops going to parties, bars, and meetings. Not seeing Enjolras makes him sad, because the crush he has on that man is legendary, but he doesn’t have to worry about impressing him, which is sort of nice, too.

He’s exhausted, but a better kind of exhausted. The kind where he feels good tired, happy tired. His cast comes off and he starts physical therapy, which sucks, but he can actually paint again. It’s bad, to begin with. His muscles are unused to painting and it hurts, but Jehan tells him it’s a metamorphosis, and sometimes it hurts as we change.

Grantaire worries that he won’t be able to generate new content, innovative content, and can barely bring himself to try at first, beyond endless warmups. The first time he paints something real, Jehan and Bahorel sit in the same room, silently reading, supporting. He practices taking breaths in the same slow pattern that Eponine taught him, and feels out color, the shape, mimes the motion that his hand will take across the canvas (with his eyes closed so he can’t see how ridiculous he looks). The final product is better than he expects, and he lets out a breath. Things might actually be okay.

The next day, Grantaire steps out of the shower, and squeezing the excess water from his dreads, sees himself in the mirror. His hair (which Eponine helped him fix up, and which Gavroche had stuck beads in) falls across his face and drapes dramatically over his shoulders, and without any prompting, Grantaire thinks, I like my hair.

And he _does_. He and Eponine had settled on locs for him because they were relatively low-maintenance, but his hair had always been more a shield than a style. But it looks good, looks intentional. He can see how someone could find him attractive, in a way that’s never really clicked before.

He can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.

Catching up on school work because an uphill battle lasting months, but Grantaire maintains his friendship time to keep himself from backsliding (and also because he is shocked to discover that his friends actually like spending time with him, too), but he doesn’t realize how long it’s been since he was at a Les Amis meeting, until he sees Enjolras barreling towards while he waits at the counter for his coffee.

“Grantaire!” Enjolras greets, sounding vaguely winded, like he was powerwalking towards this conversation. “How are you?” Enjolras has his intense face on, which makes Grantaire nervous, because he looks angry, even though Grantaire is eighty percent sure Enjolras is not.

“I’m okay,” Grantaire says cautiously, aware he probably doesn’t sound extremely okay. “What’s up?”

Enjolras’s face slips from intense to sort of disappointed; whatever he had hoped to get from Grantaire, he is clearly already giving up on. “I haven’t seen you in six months.”

Grantaire can feel his eyes widen. That can’t be right, can it? He does some quick mental arithmetic. “Oh, yeah. I guess that’s right.”

Enjolras frowns. “I… was it something I did?”

“No, it’s not it’s just that—” The barista calls out R, and whatever drive he had to admit things to Enjolras disappears in that moment. He grabs his coffee and takes a sip to stall. “Things came up,” Grantaire finally settles on, even though it’s hardly a defence.

Enjolras nods, tightly. There’s a certain expression that Enjolras started adopting around him at some point, tight, maybe disappointed, forced. Grantaire had forgotten how much that face made him want to apologize for whatever he had done to cause it. “All right. It’s just that I value your opinion. I miss your contributions.”

Grantaire isn’t sure that even now, doing better, he’d be able to talk in front of everyone like he used to. “Sorry, I have another thing the day of the meetings. Nice seeing you.” Grantaire gestures with his cup and turns to face the door. His heart is pounding like a kick-drum; he had forgotten how much he liked Enjolras and facing him brought back all the fear and lust and admiration in a sickening wave.

“We’ll reschedule them!” Enjolras blurts at his back, and Grantaire turns around slowly.

He can’t imagine that Enjolras wants him there that badly, but he also can’t think of another reason Enjolras would say that. “It took four rounds at doodle to find a time that worked for everyone. You can’t jeopardize that shit.” 

Enjolras’s face looks somewhat pained. “Can I—can I email you the minutes and have you email me back your thoughts? I value your input, Grantaire.”

Grantaire assumes it’s the flattery that makes him say yes, but he does, immediately, without even thinking it through. 

Enjolras beams, a real, victorious smile. “Good,” he says. “Great! I’ll email you this week’s and you can tell me what you think, and we’ll go from there.”

Grantaire nods, a little baffled, and watches as Enjolras seems to realize he’s in a coffee shop and walks sheepishly to the counter.

It’s a strange encounter, but Grantaire has a whole lot of those, and he sort of doesn’t expect it to go anywhere. Just Enjolras being kind.

He is sort of surprised when he receives an email later that day from Enjolras’s personal email address, not the one he sends Les Amis news from, with the subject line: PLEASE PERUSE AT YOUR LEISURE. Grantaire takes a look the next day, between classes, and uses his class time to plan a response.

He doesn’t have the crisis with his words in writing. He has time to make sure that his words are saying what he means for them to say. Enjolras sends a response after a few hours, it’s more measured than he expects from Enjolras, too. And it’s nice. He hadn’t realized how much he missed debating with Enjolras, how much he missed his small contribution towards making the world better.

It’s refreshing and fun, and they are civil and then friendly, and then friends. Considering he had never seen Enjolras out of class since they went to different schools, he hadn’t ever had a chance to get close to Enjolras and had been too nervous of his crush to push for it. But now, sometimes, between arguing the merits of different sorts of public organizing, they would have a conversation about Grantaire’s art or the law program that Enjolras is trying to push his way through without getting expelled for punching a professor.

After a few weeks of this, it surprises Grantaire when the entire day after a meeting is radio silent from Enjolras. He gives in, eventually, and sends Enjolras a email, asking if something happened, but he doesn’t get a reply from that either. He can feel anxiety rising like a tide in his chest and it doesn’t dissipate until he sees an email from Bahorel.

It reads: R, this idiot broke four fingers on his two hands. He isn’t allowed to type or text, so he wants me to ask if you’ll get coffee with him (he’s really high, but it’s sort of charming????). Attached are minutes, have fun!

He receives a text from Combeferre almost immediately after that reads, ‘You don’t have to say yes, Grantaire. Think it over?’ and it’s probably smart advice, but the talking has only reinforced that amount that Grantaire wants to be face to face with Enjolras, and he’s not going to say no with the offer on the table.

Grantaire texts back, ‘tell him yes,’ and recieves in reply a picture with Enjolras with several fingers in splints, giving him a terrible attempt at a thumbs up.

They meet two days later in that same cafe. Enjolras is instantly noticeable, bundled in a oversized sweatshirt, trying to maneuver coffee with several fingers on each hand splinted. There’s a second coffee sitting across from him, and Grantaire is sort of taken aback by that. “Hi!” Enjolra says, over enthusiastically, and probably a little high. “I got you a cappuccino because that’s what you ordered the last time I saw you here, but it’s occurring to me now that maybe you wanted something different? If, uh, if that’s the case then I’ll just drink it, too. No worries. Did you want something else?”

Grantaire grins and throws himself into the seat. “Cappuccino is great, thank you.” Enjolras deflates with obvious relief, and it is almost charming how open Enjolras is on pain meds. “So we’ll get to your clearly overly optimistic views of how liberal the city is in a second, but you know you have to tell me what happened to your hands, right?”

Enjolras blushes, and lifts his cup to his mouth with it resting between his palms. After replacing it on the table, he sighs and says, “I punched someone a lot.”

Grantaire tries his hardest to keep a straight face. “And why did you punch someone a lot?”

Enjolras sighs. “He yelled some shit at us as we left Corinth? And in my defense it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Grantaire considers. “Okay well there are definitely worse reasons to break your hands. I commend you.”

“Appreciate the support.” Enjolras ducks his head in whatever the literal Greek god equivalent of bashful is. “Before we get to your severe under-estimation of the ethics of our city, can I ask you a personal question?” Grantaire nods, sure that he knows where this is going. “Why did you stop coming to meetings? It’s been strange without you, even with the emails.”

Grantaire takes a moment to think about his options. Lying is by far the more attractive option but he knows he’ll regret it. Better to face the music and hope his sick dance moves with soften the blow. “They were too hard for me. I’ve been trying hard to not be an alcoholic, and that environment made it really hard for me.”

Enjolras frowns, radiant righteousness flooding his face. “R, just because you decided to give up alcohol doesn’t mean you were an alcoholic. None of us like hearing you talk about yourself like that. And also that’s not a thing to joke or exaggerate about, Grantaire, real people struggle with substance abuse everyday.”

Grantaire feels a bristle of anger but bites it down, pinpoints what upsets him, and tries to unpack that. It occurs to him that maybe therapy has had more of an impact on him than he thought. “Okay I’m going to give you the world’s smallest pass on leaning into the stigmatization of alcoholism because you broke your dumb hands, but casual reminder that it’s a disease, and saying I have it shouldn’t be different from telling you I have diabetes. Secondly, I know I wasn’t advertising it, but I kept wine beside my bed so in the morning I could stave off the hangover. My baseline was basically hammered, and towards the end there's whole days of my life I just don't remember. Like at all.

“I’d paint for class and hand it in only to later panic I missed a deadline, send my teacher a last-minute email with some half-assed excuse, only later to and have a painting handed back to me I could’ve sworn I'd never seen before in my life. So yes. I’m an alcoholic, I’m in recovery, and after a couple slip-ups I just don’t think I should be spending my spare time in Corinth.”

Enjolras looks a little stricken. He moves to push his hair behind his ear but the hair gets stuck on his splint and he sighs, trying to discreetly detangle it as he speaks. It isn’t discreet. “I’m sorry, Grantaire. That was—I reacted poorly. I had no idea you were struggling.” 

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. We’re meant to be a community.” He reaches for his phone and Grantaire watches with mild pity as Enjolras tries to slide it out of his pocket by manipulating it from the outside. He finally sets it on the table and begins the process of trying to unlock it with his ring finger.

“Yes,” Grantaire says, feeling guilty as Enjolras leans over the phone and his hair covers his face. “We’re a community and I’m the neighbor with the eight-foot fences. Can I do that for you?” he asks, when Enjolras’s one finger texting gets too exhausting to watch.

“Yes,” Enjolras says, looking him dead in the eyes and sliding his phone across the table. “I’m texting Courfeyrac and Combeferre to see if we can find a suitable replacement venue that’s dry.”

“Uh, no,” Grantaire snaps, scooping up the phone before Enjolras can try and reclaim it. “That is what you were trying to do, and I am putting it to a stop.” Enjolras gives him a sharp glare, but Grantaire is definitely immune to that look by this point. “Noop. As much as y’all are a social justice club you are also a lot of your members only real chance to decompress during the week and I’m not going to let you take that away for my sake.”

Enjolras’s face falls, and he tries to hide his expression behind hid cup. “I know maybe you don’t want to hear it from me, but it’s not the same without you there,” he says, and takes a long drink. It gives Grantaire a moment to try and parse whatever that sentence is supposed to mean, but it eludes him. When Enjolras comes up for air, a long piece of his hair saturated in coffee. He deflates, and Grantaire has to try really hard not to laugh.

“Can I help with that? Put your hair up or something?” Enjolras blushes and nods, Grantaire assumes because he’s embarrassed he can’t do it himself. Grantaire stands up, circling the table. He pulls a hair tie off of his wrist, and, standing behind Enjolras, takes a deep breath and tries not to feel like a giant creep. Enjolras’s hair is softer than Grantaire had imagined it, and his brain short circuits with his hands in Enjolras’s hair. “Bun...or?”

“Bun is good,” Enjolras says tightly.

Grantaire does it quickly, worried that the sudden tension is because Enjolras knows how Grantaire feels, and he’s made Enjolras feel uncomfortable. He walks back to his chair, and tries to ignore how sullen Enjolras looks. “Okay,” Grantaire says, settling. “Tell me more about your delusional plan to unite our campuses in protest.”

They talk for two more hours, and Enjolras’s mood quickly brightens. Seeing Enjolras releases the floodgates, though, and Grantaire can’t imagine not seeing him in person again, and quickly. He texts as much to Combeferre who replies, ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, you two are meeting on Thursday at that crepe place you like, please make your own plans from here on out.’ Two minutes later, ‘I’m serious,’ and finally, ‘Don’t test me.’

They meet that week, and once or twice a week from then on out. It’s nice to see Enjolras in person, nicer still to see proof that Enjolras wants to see him. Sometimes, he struggles with his words, and sometimes the pressure of trying to impress Enjolras makes him think about drinking, but he has coping skills now, and is not about to let his feelings get in the way of progress. They meet like clockwork, which is why Grantaire gets a spike of anxiety when Enjolras asks if they can do dinner, instead.

Dinner is the realm of dates, and Grantaire needs to not be getting his hopes up.

Enjolras is dressed nicer than usual, which gives Grantaire butterflies, but greets Grantaire by saying, “I’m sorry, I just came from an internship interview.”

Grantaire laughs amicably, slipping into his chair and says, “You sure that’s the case and this isn’t meant to be a date?” and then winks.

Enjolras’s face morphs into the angry expression that Grantaire had come to expect during the end of his regular attendance at Les Amis meetings. “Listen, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, and I know you don’t feel the same way about me that I feel about you, but that doesn’t mean you can rub my face in it.”

Grantaire experiences a brief out of body experience while his brain reboots. “I’m sorry, who doesn’t feel the same way about who? Are we in opposite world? Am I having a stroke?”

Enjolras swallows hard. “I told you. At Jehan’s Solstice party. That I had feelings for you, and you told me there were reciprocated, and then you tried to kiss me.” He pauses, gauges Grantaire’s face. “You don’t remember any of this.”

“No,” Grantaire agrees. “But I was shitfaced at the Solstice party. Tell me what happened next.”

Enjolras rubs his knuckles with the opposite hand, a tic he developed post broken fingers. “At that point I had realized you were drunk. I told you I wasn’t comfortable kissing you, or taking your word for it because you were unable to consent. And then you said—” Enjolras falters, takes a deep breath. “You said you’d been in love with me for years and if I didn’t believe you, I should ask you tomorrow, and that your answer would be the same.”

Grantaire’s stomach sinks as Enjolras tells the story. He has no recollection of the Solstice party beyond a vague memory of doing jello shots with Bahorel, but he remembers the next day. Enjolras had shown up at the library at Grantaire’s school during his shift and had marched up to him, bitch-face bordering on angry. Enjolras had asked, “Did you mean what you said last night?” and Grantaire, assuming he had offended Enjolras had said, “Enjolras, you should know by now that I never mean anything I say.”

In retrospect, that’s the moment that Enjolras became tight-lipped and closed off around him.

“Okay,” Grantaire says, taking deep breaths to keep the hyperventilation at bay. “I fucked up there, sure. I didn’t know what you were asking and I should have asked for clarification, because yes, obviously I had feelings for you. But in my defense you could have been a little more specific.”

Enjolras considers him for a long, silent moment, absolutely worthy of hyperventilation, then says. “Yes. That’s fair.” He starts to say something else, but then their waitress materializes next to them, and they both order the first thing they see on the menu, having been a little too preoccupied to actually look.

The moment is broken, though, and so Grantaire asks, “Are we okay?” because the lack of closure is going to give him hives. “Like, it this okay?”

“I...yes.” Enjolras says definitively. “We’re okay. Explain your earlier text to me: why won’t I like that documentary?”

The rest of dinner is uneventful, though charged with the earlier confession. Grantaire is seriously considering trying to kiss Enjolras again, because from what he’s gathered, Enjolras still maybe has feelings for him, and also that’s a move that might work coming from a sober Grantaire.

He doesn’t get a chance though, because as soon as they exit the restaurant, Enjolras reaches out, blindly, and grabs Grantaire’s hand. “Would you have any interest in going on a date with me?”

Grantaire tries to shut down the incredulous expression on his face, but it’s really hard. “Yes! I literally just said—doesn’t matter. Yes.”

Enjolras smiles cautiously. “I wasn’t sure you still liked me.”

Grantaire barely holds in a groan. “Please tell me whatever I did to give you that impression so that I can immediately stop and never do it again.” Enjolras laughs, and the sound fills Grantaire with warmth; it doesn’t touch the void inside, but it spreads through the other parts of him, warm and cheery and bright. “I am several months sober.”

“Okay?” Enjolras asks.

Grantaire grins, a shit-eating grin. “This is me consenting to a kiss if you lik—”

The kiss is brief, but they part blushing and gasping, and Enjolras’s lips are flushed pink, and Grantaire smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading I am [gabe racetrackthehiggins](https://racetrackthehiggins.tumblr.com) feel free to come talk to me or prompt me! i am also making an exr discord server so ask about that if you so desire!


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